Sunday, August 30, 2009

Will Political Dissent be Silenced by Obama's Internet Police?

H/T to Dr. Doo2little over at Cleveland Tea Party Patriot blog for this one.

I fully understand that cyber warfare and cyber attacks are a national security threat. With that I am willing to have some of my rights intruded upon in the name of us having a secure nation -- but only too a limited extent. Though some on the left went totally ape shit over the Patriot Act, I had no problem with it. I did not find the wire taps intrusive... if you were not planning to attack our country -- then you had nothing to worry about. I may be wrong, but, other than terrorists, I have yet to hear about someone being convicted of a crime from the wire taps.Fast forwarding to present day... any restrictions placed upon the American public should be viewed as questionable. Why? Because collectively the new administration has launched a full frontal assault on being American and everything for which we stand. When this administration says, " in the best interest of our country..." or, "... in the name of National Security," the echoes of Hugo Chavez and other Socialist, Marxist, Fascist, Communist, etc... dictators ring through our halls of justice & freedom.Never in the history of our country has an elected U.S. President used his office as a tool of stripping away our rights or turning fellow Americans against each other more than President Obama. Using the Dept. of Homeland Security to label outspoken individuals as extremists, instruct the FBI to open files and investigate organizers of any so-called anti-government rallys and the dispatching of union thugs to beat socialized health care naysayers are just a few things President Obama has done as he forcefully tries imposing his socialist views on our country. This modern day constitutional assault on any and all free thinking legal citizens of the United States is of historical proportions.Now, and again chirping in the name of "national security," Obama is planning on expanding their insidious reach into our lives by creating the Internet Police giving him emergency access to our personal information and the authority to shut down websites....

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license. Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.) More...

Even without imposing the Internet Police, some Internet search engines have already taken it upon themselves to become Obama's Goose-Stepping Internet Goons. As I posted here when Google recently blocked access to the website of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) through their search engine.